Megachurch Pastor ‘Sucking Community Dry With Tithes’ As He Drives A Bentley Bentayga

Dr. William Curtis got exposed on Facebook.

Dr. William Curtis is the pastor of the 10,000-member Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is a struggling city. As of June 2015, “Pittsburgh has a higher percentage of people in poverty than does the U.S. as a whole, and a smaller percentage of the richest Americans.” That said, Dr. Curtis is allegedly taking advantage of his community by using the name of God.

According to Christian Post, Jarell Taylor posted a photo of the pastor’s $230,000 Bentley on Facebook last week, which is roughly twice the median income of the church’s neighborhood. He wrote the caption, “If your pastor [is] driving a Bentley truck, he’s sucking your community dry with hope and tithes.” See the photo below:

One commentator wrote on the post, “This [is] the most popular church in the city I ain’t seen a community event sponsored.”

The Christian Post reported, “The Christian Post reached out to Curtis for comment about his choice of transportation Thursday and his assistant said she did not believe he would respond to questions about his car but promised to deliver our message to him. She also acknowledged that the church had been getting direct reactions to the vehicle as well but would not confirm the sources of the criticism.”

Watch an interview below with Dr. Curtis:

In the interview above Curtis says his “initial interest was to get to know the people” — sounds like his initial interest was to get to know the money in their bank accounts. Although there is more we need to know about Dr. Curtis and it is possible he paid for the Bentley with a different source of income (he supposedly works at a marketing firm), but as Samuel Cruz of Religion & Society at the Union Theological Seminar told The Christian Post, “For me, I think it’s really immoral to be able to make so much money out of ministry, or any organization that is ministry-like and that to some extent is being supported by a church. I think it’s outrageous. … I just feel you can’t justify it, in my opinion.” Well said.